


Gardener, not Godfather

by Giglet



Category: White Collar
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:52:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giglet/pseuds/Giglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Mozzie character study.<br/>This isn't necessarily what I think of Mozzie -- but it might be the way he thinks of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gardener, not Godfather

The thing is, Mozzie could be a criminal mastermind, running half the soft rackets in New York City. He could be powerful, he could be richer, he could have minions, and a big town car with a driver, and a shop full of geeks and hackers to help him build the kinds of equipment that really good cons could use, and an executive assistant like his very own Pepper Potts.

That had been his idea of a good life, once. But a long miserable summer spent with both his legs in casts due to an unfortunate misunderstanding had left him with a lot of time to think in between visits by the Meals-on-Wheels driver. Some people, presented with the same stimulus, might have decided to go straight to reduce the chances of another run-in with dumb-but-effective hired muscle from the heavy rackets. Mozzie wasn't one of those people, but that didn't mean he didn't learn.

He thought about the difference between accumulating power and holding onto it, the difference between friendship and respect and fear, and the difference between mastering his desires and being mastered by them. Running an organization would be a full time job. And if he had to hire people, he couldn't be sure they'd do what he needed or be discreet about what they'd done, so he'd have to watch them and manage them or hire someone else to do it for him. The road to hell was paved with middle management.

The more he thought about creating an organization the more it sounded like a hassle. What he really wanted, he thought, was a dis-organization of people who did what he wanted them to while thinking it was their own idea. He didn't want power, because wielding power took consistent effort and wasn't much fun. He wanted influence.

So: the first step in unravelling and re-creating his dream was this: there was nothing he had to do. He didn't want a job, even if that meant giving up the potential company of the lovely Miss Potts. Instead of a job, he had... activities. Hobbies, if you will, that were sometimes urgent and always potentially lucrative. Instead of employees, he had protégés. People who knew he could help them get the stuff they needed or get rid of the stuff they needed to off-load, or teach them what they needed to know, or introduce them to someone with a specialized skill set. Not for the money, oh no, he never charged a fee. But the way their world worked, it was clear that he should receive a decent cut and if you pressed it on him, he'd eventually accept it. (If you didn't cut him in, that was okay, too, but you'd find that he was less and less easy to find, less available to help out, less likely to introduce you to fascinating people and exciting opportunities. Since the smarter people learned this lesson quickly and the dumber ones didn't, he found himself working more with smart people. Smart people tended to be more interesting and less likely to get involved with cops or other violent types, so that worked out fine.)

Mozzie thought of his web of acquaintance among con men and forgers and grifters, fences and other fixers, as a garden: it would be more fruitful if he tended it regularly, but it would survive just fine if he ignored it for a month or two. Gardening the soft rackets was his hobby.

It was a hell of a lot better than having a job.


End file.
